Hitting a wall

 In part, this is because of the ongoing.....computer issues I can't really talk about details of

AFAICT, my computer is NOT compromised; apparently they came through while I was out at lunch and somehow checked (I hadn't turned my computer on and it was still off when I got back, but a cable to it had been moved). They said they put blue painters tape with a warning on the compromised ones (it happened to a colleague). We're still not supposed to boot them up; I'm really hoping that tomorrow morning there'll be an e-mail saying those of us whose computers were marked safe can.

 I listened to Pandora on my phone while I worked today (using the wifi, which is finally back up) but it eats the battery charge to do so; I had to charge it up when I came home at lunch.)

It's unsettling to have things that seem wrong ongoing, and I'm worried about the start of classes Monday; that things won't be ready. 

That, and the UNRELENTING heat (it's been over 100 with heat indexes close to 110 in the afternoons every day) and no rain and not even really clouds also affects me.

It's very much a "Groundhog Day" (in the sense of the Bill Murray movie) feeling: like I'm stuck, like nothing will ever change or get better, and that's hard and unpleasant. This feeling started in 2020, the feeling that nothing changes for long stretches of time, and I don't well like it.

Also, the ongoing talk about vaccines and the lies and the scaremongering from some of the highest offices in the land is driving me spare. It's one of those things I know is wrong and no matter what I do I can't fix it. (I must schedule my RSV shot before those get stopped, maybe. I have a mammogram on Friday, I have to check to see if a vaccine before is contraindicated, sometimes they are, and if they are, get it Friday afternoon)

 

And all of this, and a few other things going on, kind of added up into a big ball of suck this afternoon and while I was working on counting the soil invertebrates (something I CAN do without the computer, though it's nicer to be able to run my classical music off Pandora on it while I work), I kind of hit a wall and felt like what I was doing was futile: no one really cares about my research, science is dying as a pursuit, nothing I am doing matters, what's the point and I wound up starting to cry a little

(Shortly after that a colleague came in and I sucked it up and helped her with the thing she was going to do, she said she could do it alone but sometimes stopping to help someone when I get like that breaks me out of it).

 

Maybe it'll be better when classes start. I hope so. I just do not like this time of year much - it's hot, it's boring, everybody is short-tempered from the heat.

 

I did sort another box or two of yarn over the weekend; put aside some things to donate if I can find a place that will take different types of yarn (like: I have nearly 2000 yards of a butterscotch colored Plymouth fingering weight, I think I bought it for a sweater, but I doubt I'll make more than one more fingering weight sweater ever and I've already planned to do the "Glacier" sweater I bought yarn and pattern for in 2020, then couldn't knit up, because I need to exorcise those old COVID era demons. If i can find someone - either on Ravelry or locally - who wants it I'll happily give it to them. And I have some worsted, some acrylic, some wool, and it's also possible the senior center here will want yarn, I don't know if they have a crafts group, but they might? Or find out if there are still any prisons that accept yarn as a sort of occupational-therapy thing; I know some teach people to crochet as a way to pass the time (and also feel better about themselves; for a lot of people being able to make things is therapeutic)

I DID find some bulky weight - it was either Malabrigo or Indecieta, one of the South American brands - that I bought probably 20 years ago now from good old Elann (I still miss Elann some times, especially their closeouts). It's easily enough for a cardigan and I found a basketweave-stitch pattern that should be nice, and it was all I could do to not wind off at least two skeins and start (it's a variegated so I should alternate skeins every row to break up the pooling and also cope with the slightly variable dye lots that that brand of yarn has).  

But I did work on the seemingly-endless blanket instead; the color just shifted to the lightest green and if it's not all the way to the end before that's used up, then it goes on to the yellow. And it will be nice to have this done; I've been working on it since 2022 and I just want it off the needles, and if it ever does cool down it might be nice to have on my bed.